Greek Mythologists
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The Greeks developed over time a massive and complex mythology that explained in animistic, anthropomorphic terms many of the natural phenomena seen in the world around them and at the same time propounded a direct relationship between themselves and the gods as part of that explanation. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality and the relationships between such elements as mind and matter, substance and attribute, including both ontology and cosmology. The subject matters of myth and metaphysics overlap, but for the Greeks the shift from myth to logical analysis in the context of reason is a shift to Logos. One of the early concerns was to discover arche, or the first principle, addressed by early philosophers such as Hesiod, Thales, and Anaximander. Aristotle explained that to know a particular thing is to know its primary causes. The earliest philosophers, he says, concerned themselves with material principles underlying all things, and this is the first cause, that of which all things consist and from which they first came. Different theorists came up with different first principles. Jonathan Barnes notes that some see Greek mythologists as predecessors of Greek philosophers: There are similarities between certain aspects of these early tales and certain parts of the early philosophers' writings (Barnes 15). Aristotle made a distinction between mythologists and philosophers. Barnes, however, feels that there are few antecedents
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s the first cause. Of the four, water is the most obvious in its transformations as it is seen in the form of vapor, water, ice, and can change from one to the other depending on the climate. We may disagree with the determination made by Thales that the basic stuff of the universe is water, and that everything is really water in some different form, since we know that this is not the case. His conclusion is less important in the history of philosophy than the basis on which he made the determination in the first place--that there is something serving as the ultimate stuff of the universe, and that this something explains change while itself remaining unchanged. We call this stuff atoms, and further divisions into smaller sub-atomic particles. The essential concept is the same--that there is a first cause. Thales thus made considerable forward progress and set in motion the philosophical mode of inquiry which would be continued through the ages to this day. He is also considered the first scientist as he sought an explanation outside divine intervention for the reality and the changes of this world.
Anaximander raised an objection to the idea offered by thales that everything was composed of water, for he stated that if t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1542
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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